


Lacerations

by Niki



Series: Hurt/Comfort Sequence [3]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e03 Life Born of Fire, F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:51:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They both carried marks after the fire but while his was a sign of his own failure, his boss's hands bore the marks of a hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lacerations

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: passing suicidal thoughts
> 
> This story, while part of the series, was completed earlier and thus not posted with the others in the Secret Santa.

Hathaway had only vague recollections of the night. Zoë's kisses, the words he had needed to hear, the explanations that made very little sense in his drugged mind, then Lewis, saving him, carrying him to safety, stopping him from joining Zoë... from trying to save her.

The older man was unmarked by the whole drama except for the tiny cuts from the falling glass. Seeing them sparked another memory in his mind: lying on the street, weight of someone on him, being shielded from the debris.

Those tiny lacerations on Lewis' skin, his hands and neck, should have been on his but the other man had shielded him with his own body.

They healed fast, faster than the cut on his own face but while that one was a sign of his own failure, his boss's hands bore the marks of a hero. Don't be so melodramatic, Lewis would say, as he had in the hospital, but that didn't make it any less true – it was Lewis who carried him out of the burning building, who shielded him with his body, who stopped him from doing something stupid like following Zoë into the flaming hell... Had he really meant to do that? He had only been trying to stop the woman (man?) from killing herself. Surely. 

But he had felt such kinship with her, lying on the bed, waiting for death. Firebirds, both of them, paying for their sins in the cleansing fire. It had made sense at the time. He had wanted that, even. His professional life in ruin, his friend – boss – friend hating him, sins of the past bleeding into his present and he had been quietly glad to be rid of it all, to die in the arms of someone who understood, who cared, because she was just as damaged. 

But like Christ, Lewis had bought his salvation with his blood. Sacrilegious comparison, surely, and one he didn't make without considerable amount of humour. Yet there it was. Lewis had deemed him worth saving, despite all their angry words earlier; had gone to physical danger to achieve it, and had shielded him with his body from his own stupidity.

It all came back to those tiny marks on his friend's hands. Blood shed because of him. A minor irritation in the grand scheme of things but he found his eyes fixing on them, following their healing process, watching them fade away in front of his eyes until nothing was left.

The mark on his own face lasted longer, looking like a brand to his guilty eyes. He carried it like a cross, a latter A, like everyone who saw it would realise he had betrayed a friend, then abandoned him, and in shame of that betrayed another friend. Will was gone, but Lewis was still here. Hathaway could apologise, make amends, not lose his friendship.

As much as seeing those marks on Lewis' skin hurt, they brought comfort as well. They were little reminders of forgiveness, a tangible proof of caring. 

The wound on his face would heal, like the wounds on Lewis' skin, without a scar, because the cut hadn't – after all – been deep enough.


End file.
